


Four Is Just Another Number For Death

by Scarlet_Nin



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Gen, Ghosts, Good Sibling Allison Hargreeves, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Mentioned David "Dave" Katz, Misunderstandings, Prompt: Dirty Secret, Protective Ben Hargreeves, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Spring Cleaning Gone Wrong, Temporary Character Death, The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy) Need a Hug, Whumptober 2020, mentions of the mausoleum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:08:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27021013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Nin/pseuds/Scarlet_Nin
Summary: There’s a reason Reginald Hargreeves decided to end Klaus’ special training at the age of thirteen. One he kept track of in one of his infamous notebooks.Klaus for his part, just wants to know why nobody lets him get a peek into dear old Dad’s notes.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Klaus Hargreeves & The Hargreeves
Comments: 65
Kudos: 806





	Four Is Just Another Number For Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VeteranKlaus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/gifts).



> It is DONE!!! I'm too impatient to wait another two days to post this, so here you go. This is entirely too long, I know. 
> 
> Anyway, this is dedicated to VeteranKlaus, one of my favorite writers for this fandom! If you haven't checked out their works, you're missing out, so go read them! I promise you won't regret it!!

_“Why are you here?” She asks like he’s to blame._

_Klaus slowly uncurls his arms around his legs. “It’s not my fault I ended up here.” He’s pretty sure of that. Almost. His memories are still kind of fuzzy. Blurry and out of reach. Every time he attempts to brush them with his fingers, the icy chill of terror gives him a shock and he withdraws his hand._

_Cowardly, Dad called him, afraid fit the bill much better._

* * *

Cleaning out Reginald’s office wasn’t a chore any of his siblings took joy in. Too many bad memories clung to the four stuffy walls of Sir Hargreeves’ study and the horrors inside his notes were hard to stomach on a good day.

To save his siblings the heartache, Luther volunteered to clear it out. They’ve already looked through most of the notes together, there was no reason to find anything new during spring cleaning.

Yet, Luther found another notebook hidden under a floorboard underneath the desk. Putting aside his dust sweeper, he pushed the desk away to kneel, gently prying open the small gap with his fingers. There wasn’t much room to hide stuff away and the single black notebook staring up at him looked ordinary—not giving away its importance by the cover.

There was no title for the small book. Just a black canvas with the faint initial of Reginald Hargreeves carved into the front.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Luther chooses to open it.

He should have known better to judge a book by its cover, case in point Vanya. Eyes darting across the pages, flying over the words, a slow but steady frown works its way up onto his face. The next page is full of a diagram, coal lines carefully drawing each line of what appears to be a building. Skipping that page, he skims over the next only for his blood to run cold half-way through.

Throat closing up, he stops, re-reading the last few passages. Hoping to have misread in his hurry. The words don’t change, unmovable in Dad’s handwriting and Luther’s hands tighten around the book before he drops it onto the floor like it burns.

Bile rises quick and fast in his throat. Luther swallows, struggling to keep it down as he stumbles backwards until his back hits the shelf. A vase drops to the floor, shattering while he stares, horror-stuck at the notebook laying on the wooden floor, socked feet getting soaked by the water sloshing across the wood.

“No…” The denial comes hard and fast, knocking into his chest and leaving him breathless. “…no way.”

The words ring in his ears as if his Dad had spoken them and Luther can see him, the phantom of a ghost sitting on the chair near the desk, slightly leaning over the table, his hand moving smoothly across paper as he wrote it all down without a single muscle in his face twitching. Without remorse. A sight branded into his childhood memories he won’t ever forget.

Caught up in his thoughts, a tidal wave of terror wiping his mind blank, he doesn’t hear the sharp knocks on the doorframe wood, doesn’t notice Diego poking his head into the room until he’s marching up to him with a suspicious frown on his face.

“The hell’s up with you?” Diego asks, eyeing the broken vase, the flowers Grace put there yesterday now ruined, with thin-veiled annoyance. “I thought you wanted to clean up, not make more of a mess.”

Luther’s response gets caught up in the back of his throat. All that makes it past his lips is a soft wheezing noise.

Diego straightens, his smirk falling away. “You alright, man?”

Christ— “No.” He’s not sure he’ll ever be, not after what he’s just read—the thought brings up a new wave of nausea for him to quell—and for once, he doesn’t care if Diego sees him like this. Leaning for support on the shelf, pale and shaky, trying not to retch.

“What happened?” Voice low and tight with anticipation, Diego leans in closer searching for a clue in his face. The concern shining through his scowl would be touching, if he could see through the stinging in his eyes. “Luther, what did you find?”

The urgent question jostles him out of his stupor. Taking a moment to breath, he gestures to the book lying on the floor, his hand trembling and he watches Diego pick it up and turn it over in his hands. His gaze darts up towards Luther as if to check for permission and at the jerky nod he gets, he starts flapping it open, leaning his hip against the desk.

In hindsight, he should’ve given him a warning about what Diego was about to read. He’s always had a soft spot for Klaus. More so than any of them, Five in his lifetime investment to keeping them alive included. He shouldn’t have to read about what Dad did to their brother—bright-eyed, fearful Number Four, who used to look at them for comfort whenever he got spooked on his bad days—from an old and worn notebook like it’s a dirty secret.

 _But that’s what it is, isn’t it?_ _A secret Dad never wanted anyone to know. Just like Vanya’s powers._

The sound of flesh hitting wood makes him flinch.

“It’s n-not t-true.” Diego sounds wrecked. The book held open at a page by Diego’s finger while his fist rests on the desk. “It—It can’t be. He’s walking around the house like he hasn’t got a thing to worry about aside from annoying the shit out of Five. This is bullshit!”

The book is turned around and Luther catches a quick glimpse of a photo, the glimpse of a face, pastry white and bruised, as Diego waves it around angrily, looking furious and on the verge of tears.

“What reason would he have to lie in his notes?”

Diego recoils, his hip slamming into the desk, at the question. A small torn noise wrings itself out of his chest, the sound of a wounded animal.

Luther clears his throat, adverting his eyes to the floor. “Should we tell him?”

There’s always the option of pretending to not having seen the notebook and throwing it into the fire. His hands itch to tear the pages out, rip them apart like all the letters he’s sent, not knowing they’d never be opened. Another shameful dirty secret hidden underneath the floor banks of their Dad’s office. They deserve to burn like the man himself, reduced to nothing but a pitiful pile of ash.

Diego’s hackles raise, lips twisting into a snarl, full of rage despite the grief in his eyes. The guilt. He doesn’t get to voice the clear refusal mirrored on his face, because another voice cuts in.

“Tell whom, what?”

Both of them freeze, looking at each other in alarm. Almost in sync, their heads whip up and turn towards the door, where they see Klaus leaning against the frame, ankles and arms crossed.

“I can’t believe the two of you would gossip without little old me,” He huffs, glancing between them like he doesn’t know who to scrutinize. He settles for Diego, the brother most likely to fall for his antics and his offended pout dims into a frown as he lets out a heavy sigh.

“Alright, so who did Daddy fuck over this time?”

“No one.” Diego is quick to blurt out with force, adjusting his stance so the book isn’t in the line of Klaus’ sight. “How’d you come up with that?”

“Weeeell,” Klaus says slowly, straightening up. “We’re in his office with you two looking like someone murdered your beloved puppy and you just discovered its head in a box—”

Luther tries hard not to gag at the description, turning it halfway into a cough while Diego’s lips tighten, fingers curling into fists.

“—so, who was it? Was it me? Christ, I hope it’s not Vanya again, cause Five is gonna lose his shit if the apocalypse comes back on.”

Klaus walks up to them, wide-eyed and curious to get a peek at whatever Diego’s hiding behind his back. It’s obvious he’s caught a glimpse of the book already and Diego backs away, shaking his head the closer their brother comes.

“It’s just boring old paperwork,” Diego says. “Reports about our missions and shit.”

An eyebrow raises on Klaus’ forehead as he squints at Diego. “Right,” he says. “And the hardest drugs I did was weed. Are we done lying to each other now or do you want me to tell Five you’re keeping secrets?”

“I’m not lying,” Diego says, aggressively. “Trust me, you don’t wanna read this shit.” He gestures to the book before shoving it into Luther’s chest.

“But now I really, _really_ want to read it.” Klaus clasps his hands in front of his chest, leaning around Diego’s shoulder to give Luther the puppy dog eyes. “Sharing is caring! Just a sneaky little peek and I’ll keep my lips sealed.”

“No.”

“Pretty please with cherries on top?” Klaus bats his eyelashes. He pauses for a moment, turning his head to make a face at thin air. “I _know_ he’s allergic to cherries, Casper, it’s the sentiment that counts!” He snaps before turning back to Luther. “Ghosts,” he stage-whispers with a roll of his eyes, gesturing to where Ben must be standing.

Luther glances at the spot, a chill spreading from his chest out to his toes and fingertips. He holds the book closer to his chest, shaking his head. He doesn’t trust himself to speak with Klaus staring up at him, pleadingly.

_(“Don’t,” Four said, lips quivering and panic thick in his voice. The joint One caught him smoking crumbled in his hand. “Don’t tell, Dad. He’s gonna think I’m slacking off and give me extra training to make up for it and it’s just been three days since I came back—”_

_Luther turns around, going for the door._

_“Please!” Four cries out, hand latched onto One’s arm. “Luther, please—”_

_Luther shakes the hand off, tearing his arm free. Some extra training to straighten Four out would do him good. The door slams behind his back, loud and final—)_

“Hello?” Klaus snaps his fingers in front of his face, frowning. “Anyone in there? Diego, I think Martin Luther just checked out on me.”

Would it be any other day, Luther would’ve reminded Klaus that they don’t have any second names that aren’t numbers and even if they did, it wouldn’t be put in front of his first one. But the book weights heavy in his hands and he keeps quiet.

“Drop it.” Diego puts a hand on Klaus’ shoulder, trying to pull him away. “For fuck’s sake, learn how to take a hint, Klaus, and let it go.”

“But why?” Klaus persists, failing to shake the hand off. “Whatever it is, I won’t tell anyone. Except for Ben, obviously, but there’s not much I can do against noisy ghosts. Trust me, I’ve tried. But I pinky swear I’ll take your secret, whatever that is, to the grave—”

Diego’s grip tightens on his shoulder hard enough to hurt and Klaus winces, staggering backwards when his brother pulls him back with a sharp tug. He tumbles into the arm Diego throws out to hold him up around the waist.

“Not literally!” He slaps Diego on the arm, squirming out of the grip to glower at him. “Just in case you decided to rip my arm off and beat me to death with it, because that sure felt like what you were trying to do. Which is rude. Ripping limbs off bodies is Ben’s thing, y’know.”

He rubs his shoulder, hissing at empty air.

“It’s about me,” Luther says.

Klaus whirls around in interest, shoulder forgotten. “You?”

“Yeah,” This is why he doesn’t lie. He’s not good at building a believable story around his little white lies and it shows. “About my…mission.”

“The moon one?” Klaus shifts on his feet. Luther doesn’t know why every time someone brings that up, he gets twitchy and looks for an exist, but he latches onto it now and nods. His brother takes a step back at that, glancing towards the door, hands clasped behind his back.

“That sucks,” he says, looking wary, eyes still stuck to the hallway. “You don’t want me to call Dad for you, do you?”

“No,” Luther says, loudly just as Diego snaps, “Fuck no!”

Klaus’ face brightens. It used to give Luther whiplash seeing how quickly their brother could switch between moods and different expressions, how tears could turn into a smile in the blink of an eye, and he’d chalked it up to a side-effective of the drugs. Perhaps it’s just another quirk setting Number Four apart from the rest of them. 

“Great, fantastic, superb news, gentleman.” Klaus claps his hands. “Because, believe it or not, the bastard wouldn’t have answered and you just saved me the effort of conjuring our wayward poltergeist to tell you so.”

Luther’s tongue burns with the urge to tell his brother he wouldn’t need to make Ben visible to get them to believe him that Reginald wouldn’t deign himself to show up, he’s never been fond of Number Four for reasons Luther is just starting to grasp the full extent off, but he remembers asking Klaus before, disregarding his reluctance as stubbornness. And the one time he did end up summoning their Father—alone under their Dad’s critical eye and sharp, berating tongue, _what_ was he thinking? —he hadn’t believed him. Swallowing the words back down, they burn like acid.

“Listen,” Diego says, putting a hand on Klaus’ shoulder. “Luther wanted to find Allison and talk it out with his favorite sibling. Why don’t we two go out for a bite?”

“Awww, it’s a date.” Klaus pretends to swoon, letting Diego steer him towards the door. “Which means you’re paying. Get ready to third-wheel, ghost-boy.”

“When am I not?” Diego retorts without any heat, walking them out the door.

Luther hears their voices fade, grateful Diego decided to take control of the situation. It’s a good idea, going to Allison and then to Five. Vanya’s still hesitant around him and she’d feel more comfortable with the two of them present for the news he’s about to share.

Clutching the book close, he heads to Allison’s room.

* * *

_“Come on,” She turns around to stomp away. “Kids need supervision.”_

_Refraining from pointing out she looks about as old as him, Klaus hurries along, finding a better question to ask. “Where are we going?”_

* * *

“Ben,” Klaus sing-songs after he closed the door. “I’ve got a mission for you.”

There’s a beat of Ben letting out a long, exhausted sigh that’s mostly just for show, because as much as he puts up a fight, he’s about as invested in his part-time hobby of collecting gossip as Klaus is. Curiosity is in Ben’s nature and with the advantage of being invisible there’s little other people could do to keep their privacy from his prying ears and eyes.

 _“A mission,”_ he says, dryly.

“Not a mission per say…I know you don’t like those considering they’re the reason you’re stuck with invisibility as a power now. Think of it as a favor that you’ll do for me.” Klaus sits down on his bed, kicking off his shoes.

He gets a raised eyebrow in return. _“And what do I get out that?”_

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” Klaus would be proud of Ben for using his plight to his advantage, if he weren’t the victim of said exploitation. “Do it out of goodwill like a good ghost.”

Ben crosses his arms and stares him down.

“Because you love me and you’d like to see me happy?”

_“Try again.”_

Klaus hopeful smile turns into a scowl. “Because you’ve got nothing better to do and I’m the battery giving you the energy to turn on? That good enough for you?”

 _“Fine,”_ Ben says through clenched teeth, giving him a glare. _“I’ll go and spy on them for you, but there’s going to be a day your shit with the enabler card won’t work anymore.”_

“Says the guy who still plays the dead card.” Klaus waves him off, gesturing towards the door. “Now, chop-chop! Do your thing and let me know what little secret they won’t let me in on.”

 _“You could go downstairs yourself and ask to participate.”_ Ben’s got this look on his face that tells him he thinks he’s being stupid and Klaus gives an indignant huff at that. _“It’s called a family meeting for a reason, y’know and whatever weird conspiracy theory you’ve got going has no ground to stand on. Who says there’s even going to be a meeting about this?”_

“Clearly, I’m not invited and contrarily to what you believe, I know when I’m unwanted company I usually just don’t care. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice Luther was lying to me. He’s a shit liar.” Klaus narrows his eyes at Ben, who looks away and he makes a triumphant noise, pointing at his brother. “See? Luther _was_ acting weird. You know it, I know it, hell, I bet Luther knows it too, and so does Diego. The free meal wasn’t his good act of the year. They’re covering for each other.”

 _“Maybe you’re overreacting,”_ Ben says though he doesn’t sound as confident in his words as before. _“So, what if Luther was acting strange? Whatever he read must’ve been painful for him. Dad’s not exactly known for being nice in his notes—"_

Klaus snorts, “Or ever.”

_“—so, I’d say he gets a free pass for being shifty. God knows you wouldn’t want to talk about any of the shit Dad did to you.”_

“Don’t bring her into this,” Klaus wrinkles his nose, groaning in annoyance because Ben had a point and it wasn’t fair of him to undermine the arguments Klaus thought up during his lunch with Diego.

“Well, what’d you think Daddy wrote about that Luther hadn’t known about his mission on the white rock? The news of the dust letter collection in their original package aren’t exactly new and the only thing I can think of that could be _worse_ is learning he sent up Luther’s long lost twin up there and he died, so useless there’s a ghost carbon copy of the big guy floating around we don’t know about, I’m saying whatever was written down in that book wasn’t about Luther at all.”

Ben’s silence only spurns him to keep on talking. Silence from Ben usually meant he’d be stuck speechless by Klaus’ reckless stupidity or he was right and his brother couldn’t think of a way to disagree with him that wouldn’t make him sound like the dumbass.

“It’s the moon, Benny, there’s only a bunch of rocks up there now that Luther’s gone and what about Diego’s behavior?” Klaus presses on, narrowing his eyes when Ben’s frown deepens. “There was no absent-minded knife flipping today! He ordered me a dessert before I got the chance to and he kept on looking at me like I’d sneak off to overdose in the bathroom or something.”

Weird didn’t even begin to cover up Diego’s failing attempt of normalcy. Whenever Klaus shifted in the backseat, he’d get a glance through the rearview mirror that would linger longer than it should and Diego kept trying to make small talk without being prompted to. It was so painfully awkward at times he’d felt like he was talking to Vanya who’d just published her book.

Maybe they found Dad’s notes about his drug abuse. How it started and why exactly because near end of the world or not, they still weren’t privy to the gory sight of his powers and Klaus wasn’t about to spill the beans like the Swiss Alp guy did his entrails.

 _“You want me to find out what you need to cover up,”_ Ben connects the dots, judging the fact his brother would rather lie his way out and gloss over the problem than to willingly endure another therapy session with the rest of them with disapproval.

“Bingo!” Klaus claps his hands and grins. “So be a good ghost and go ahead. I’ll be waiting here, painting my nails like I told our darling Number Two I’d do to keep him off our tracks. You think purple’s a good color?”

Ben shakes his head, stuffing his hands in his jean pockets and falls through the floor out of sight. That’s a dramatic exist reserved for the dead that Klaus would kill to have.

“Rude!” Klaus calls after him, getting up to get Allison’ nail polish from his desk. Ben doesn’t answer and without him around, there’s not much else to do to pass the time until he pops back up next to him.

So, Klaus scratches off his chipping remains of nail polish and begins to repaint them. He does the same to his toe nails, slowly and comfortable on his bed, careful not to smear any of the polish on his blankets and waits until they’re dry to pull out his knitting set. The scarf he’s trying to make is done by a third and he begins to hook the yarn around the needles, earphones in and music blaring to block out the two ghosts hanging out in the corner of his room when Ben appears next to his bed.

“So—” Klaus pulls out his earphones, eagerly looking up. “—who drew the shit end of the stick this time? There’s gotta be a time where I can say I told you so and now’s as good time as any.”

His excitement shrivels up like a raisin when he gets a good look at Ben’s face. Klaus’s grin falls away, dread beginning to pool in his stomach.

“That bad, huh?”

Ben doesn’t answer, he doesn’t need to. His face, distraught and paler than Klaus recalls ever seeing, says it all. His hands are holding his stomach in the way he used to whenever he got aches from The Horror and he looks nauseous enough to be labeled as sick. If he wasn’t a ghost, Klaus would have offered him a bucket.

“Who was it?” he asks, unsure if he wants to know the answer. “You or me?”

No wonder Luther lied to him. They were a buy one get one for free kind of deal. Wherever Klaus went, Ben followed. If Dad had written about Ben in his creepy little diaries, there was no way Luther would’ve told him what sick experiments they found out about in order to protect Ben from hearing about them.

Only for Klaus to fuck it up. Figures.

Ben walks over to the bed, sinking down next to him. Quiet and defeated.

There’s a joke resting on the tip of his tongue. Something about Ben looking haunted when he’s the ghost, but in the somberness of the situation it feels tasteless, so Klaus bites it back down and reaches out to put a hand on Ben’s knee.

Ben startles at the unexpected solidity before he lays a hand over his and squeezes.

The grip is too tight. His fingers slowly turn red, but he doesn’t pull away from Ben’s cold fingers curling around his own, desperate for contact and comfort. Not when he hasn’t done so when his brother was covered in blood from head to toe, shivering in the spot light of the cameras.

 _“Klaus,”_ Ben says, quietly. _“Don’t go snooping around for that book.”_

Now, that’s just unfair. Ben knows all there is to know about his own torture at Papa’s hands and he denies him that right? Where’s the equality? That’s blatant discrimination against the living and Klaus isn’t going to stand for it. After all the times Ben pushed him into talking about his issues, he’s going to have to share his own.

“Hey, what happened to talking it out like responsible adults?”

 _“Don’t.”_ Ben’s jaw twitches and his fingers tremble. _“Promise me, you won’t look for it.”_

“But—”

 _“Just this once listen to what I say. Don’t go looking for trouble, okay?”_ Ben implores, peering into his face with eyes suspiciously shiny for a ghost. _“It’s been years, so don’t go dig up the dirt.”_

Klaus opens his mouth, but something about the way Ben looks at him tugs at the few remaining heartstrings that haven’t snapped in his chest and he ends up closing his mouth, letting out a sigh.

Damn Ben for his talent of guilt-tripping him down the metaphorical stairs.

“Fiiiine,” he drawls out. “Message received. Reading Daddy’s torture manual is off limits. Got it. But don’t come crying to me next time you want me to read a book or something, because you just gave me a free pass on reading. Useless our sister wants to write a sequel I’m never going to touch a book again.” He gives Ben’s knee a squeeze, knocking their shoulders together.

Some of the tension drains out of Ben’s shoulders. _“Like you’ve ever read anything other than picture books or magazines.”_

“Bold of you to assume I didn’t just get my fill looking at the hot dudes on the cover page.”

Ben snorts, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly and Klaus ignores the tiny smudge of guilt festering in his heart, forcing a matching smile onto his face.

* * *

_There are so many secrets he hasn’t spoken of. Regarding the ghosts and himself._

_Most of them are his own. The others belong to the ghosts._

_He’s told them the voices speak to him, but not what they say. About the living and death, how they scream so loud they reduce him to screaming too, and that their furious wails bring tears to his eyes he can’t see through._

_He’s told them about what he sees, not what it looks like. He hasn’t mentioned the blood dripping to the floor leaving stains in his carpet that won’t go away even when the ghost moves on._

_Those are secrets that nobody wants to hear. Truths that aren’t seen, spoken or heard by anyone other than him. People shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and so there is nothing Klaus has to say._

_It’s not like anybody ever listens to him anyway._

* * *

Five finally lost his marble.

Klaus called it. He had seen it coming the moment their grump of a brother popped back into their lives as quick and sudden as he left all these years ago. Talking about the apocalypse and prosthetic eyes with a growing obsession addicts were prone to have. 

But to see Five’s sanity kissing him goodbye was different than expecting it to happen.

Was this what his siblings saw whenever he spoke to Ben or the ghosts?

Glaring over the rim of his cup of coffee, Five bristles at thin air, sitting next to him with a spine straighter than a ruler’s, hands white-knuckled around his cup.

“Everything okay there, buddy?”

“Peachy,” Five says through clenched teeth, eyes surveying the room.

“Just checking,” Klaus holds up his hands in a placating manner. “Since you’re looking like you’re planning murder and I wasn’t sure I’d end up as the unfortunate victim.”

Five’s hand twitch around his cup as if he’s holding back from throwing it across the room and there’s a vein pulsing along his neck. He fidgets, thrumming with restless energy, but doesn’t move away from the spot he’s claimed for the past ten minutes.

Klaus tries to gauge if he should vault over the couch and run to escape Five’s inevitable temper tantrum by looking at Ben, but his brother sits across from them in the arm chair and holds his head in his hands.

Five’s gaze immediately snaps to the spot he’s staring at, face twisting with rage.

“Fuck off,” he growls.

Klaus rises off the couch, getting to his feet.

“Not you,” Five says, snatching his wrist and pulling him back down.

“Uh…” Klaus says, dumbfounded. “Anybody else here that I don’t know of yet?”

“You tell me,” his brother grunts, burning holes into Ben’s chair. “And I’ll deal with them.”

“There’s Ben.” Klaus gestures to the chair, seeing the murderous look melt off Five’s face. “Y’see, he kind of lives—haunts here, so I doubt you can “deal” with him,” Klaus makes air quotes before throwing an arm over the back of the couch to lean back into his seat.

Five gives a nod of acknowledgement into Ben’s direction that might as well have been a warm welcoming hug for him. “Is it just Ben here?”

Klaus tilts his head to the side, cocking an eyebrow.

“If you don’t count me and Vanya isn’t hiding under the table, then yes.” He pauses for the dramatic effect and then asks, “Want me to check?” before leaning down to look underneath the table.

“You’re an idiot,” Five sighs, his words lacking any bite and he relaxes, shoulders uncurling from the bundle of nerves holding him as tense as Vanya’s violin strings. Bewildered, Klaus chooses not to comment on Five’s newfound paranoia.

He can do something about that when he gets to the bottom of Ben’s problem first.

* * *

_“You’re going back,” she says. “Sooner than later.”_

_Klaus’ face scrunches up. “But I don’t want to,” he mumbles, risking a glimpse at the girl. “Can’t I stay here?” he asks hopefully._

_His question earns him another sharp look. “No.”_

_“There’s got to be a reason why I’m here!” he whines, gesturing to the trees and fields stretching out alongside the road they were walking on. “I didn’t just waltz in here on my own, y’know.”_

_“There’s a reason you need to go back,” she retorts, unfazed._

_Shoulders slumping, Klaus blinks back angry tears. “You suck.”_

* * *

Between Number One to Seven, Klaus thinks, Five, Allison and him are the only ones capable of keeping a secret. Their tells are hard to catch and they don’t get all tongue-tied whenever someone approaches the subject.

The worst might be Luther, who breaks out in nervous fits of sweat, eyes shifting to his shoes or elsewhere as long as he doesn’t have to keep making eye-contact while he lies. Good poker face or not, the body language gives him away.

But Luther and him aren’t exactly close and there’s a chance of him swatting Klaus away like an annoying fly, so he doesn’t want to risk it. Even if he makes the easiest target to break. Vanya is out of question too, she’s the distraction he needs to get Ben off his back.

Asking Five in the hope of him slipping up would be a waste of time. And his window to act is so small he can barely fit himself through, let alone waste the time he has to pry out the ugly details.

“Look at you, embracing your housewife side,” Klaus saunters into the kitchen, grinning when Diego drops the knife he’s holding and starts to swear under his breath. “Good for you. Nobody likes that toxic masculine bullshit. Nice apron by the way.”

“Jesus,” Diego picks up his knife. “We’re going to start putting a bell on you.”

“Kinky,” Klaus says, watching Diego’s brows furrow. Waving a hand to dismiss the explanation that he’d have to follow up on in the face of Diego’s lacking knowledge regarding the fun parts in life, he walks over to sit on the counter. “What are you making?”

“A snack.”

“Aren’t smoothies’ desserts?”

Diego puts the knife he’s been using to cut up his bananas into the sink. “They’re healthy.”

“Not with the amount of fruit you’re putting in there.” Eyeing the blueberries, strawberries and banana pieces in the bowl, Klaus lets out a whistle. “You know sugar’s just another kind of drug.”

In response to his wisdom, Diego pours the milk into the blender, fruits already disposed inside and presses the on-button. The blender roars to life, making noises like a chainsaw.

Waiting patiently for the passive-aggressive blending to stop, Klaus is surprised to see Diego pouring him a glass too.

“This wasn’t my way of telling you I was carving drugs.”

“I know.” Diego pulls out a drawer, rummaging through for a straw that ends up in Klaus’ glass instead of his own. “Just because you’re built like a twig doesn’t mean you can’t put on any leaves.”

“What is it with you and feeding me lately?” Klaus takes an obnoxious sip of his straw, savoring the creamy flavor on his tongue. “Not that I’m complaining, but if this is some fetish of yours, I think I should know in order to give my consent.”

“Don’t—” Diego cuts himself off, lips pressing into a thin line of frustration. He glances back and forth between the smoothie and Klaus’ face wearing the same look he got whenever his stutter made a cameo and his grip around his glass tightens hard enough Klaus fears he’ll break it.

“I’m just trying to look after you,” he finally says after an awkward minute of silence. “We all know you’re shit at it.” Diego downs his smoothie like a shot, refusing to look at him.

Taking a moment to get back on track after being thrown off balance by Diego’s sudden sentimentality that he isn’t getting teary-eyed over, Klaus plays with his straw and clears his throat.

“Ben would agree with you, but thankfully, he’s out with our tiniest sister, so he can’t gang up with you against me. Speaking of our ghostly brother, you know he’s done his best taking care of me all these years. Bitching about my life choices like he’s somehow all three Christmas spirits rolled into one nagging poltergeist.”

Waiting to see if Diego would catch on his subtly, he’s sourly disappointed when his brother nods and begins to clean the dishes in the sink. He gets a towel thrown into his lap which means he’s on dry towel duty and slips off the counter so they stand side by side.

“Well, now it’s _my_ turn being the mother-hen,” Klaus says. “Want to tell my what Daddy dearest wrote about Ben in that book of yours that got him to look like he was first told to kill people with The Horror or do I need to summon Daddy-o myself to get some answers?”

The glass shatters in Diego’s grip, shards going flying and Klaus yelps, flinching backwards at the loud noise, hands flying up to cover his ears. Sucking in a heavy breath through his nose and blinking away the sudden wave of anxiety flooding him, Diego’s pained hiss rips him out of his thoughts and back to the present.

“What the hell, dumbass?” Klaus reaches for Diego’s injured hand, using the towel to stop the blood from dripping down Diego’s hand.

Diego’s face is twisted into a glower. “That’s my line!” He snaps, voice low and angry. “Don’t go talking to that bastard behind our back.”

“I wouldn’t need to if you would tell me what’s going on,” Klaus hisses, fumbling to pull Diego away from the sink and to push him into a kitchen chair. “I mean, I get that you didn’t want Ben to know, but he’s not here right now, so spill the beans or I’ll go look for that book myself.”

“You wouldn’t find it,” Diego says, self-righteously.

That’s not the answer Klaus is looking for, so he presses the towel down harsher, hearing Diego bite back a pained noise. “Oh, I would.” Klaus flashes him a cold smile. “Don’t kid yourself, knife-boy, there’s not a single hiding spot in this shithouse that I don’t know of. I’m the expert for hiding stuff that shouldn’t be found by noisy siblings. How long would you think it would take me to find it?”

There’s something resembling panic in Diego’s eyes now. “Klaus,” his brother fails to keep the urgency out of his voice. A hand wraps around his forearm, tight like a cobra. “Did Ben tell you about the contents of the book?”

“No,” Klaus rolls his eyes, wondering why Diego doesn’t sound angry about the fact that Ben spied on them now that he caught on. Must be the dead card shielding him again. “Why do you think I’m asking you? He won’t tell me.”

“Don’t you think he has a reason for keeping quiet?”

“Well, how am I supposed to help him deal with whatever shit Dad put him through if I don’t know what it is?” Klaus throws up his free hand. “Just because I see ghosts doesn’t mean I can read their minds—thank fuck for that. My point is that this is a two-way street. He doesn’t get to keep secrets from me if they’re hurting him, the hypocrite.”

Diego’s mouth opens and then promptly closes and it dawns on Klaus slowly, cogs turning in his mind, rusty from disuse, that he misunderstood the reason behind Ben’s silence.

“That little shit,” he breathes out, torn between anger and dread. “That book is about me, isn’t it?”

No wonder his siblings were walking on eggshell around him. It wasn’t because they were afraid of Ben listening in on them— _Klaus_ was the reason they were suddenly glancing into his direction as if to check he was still there whenever they sat together. The sudden tentative looks, Diego’s renewed determination to give him free meals, Allison’s offer for a spa day yesterday, Vanya’s reassurance that she wouldn’t mind playing her violin for him when the noise got too loud and Luther’s permanent kicked puppy face were his fault.

Because they pitied him. Poor, clueless Number Four.

Diego won’t let him pull away when Klaus attempts to wrench his arm free. “Hold on—”

“What was it about?” Klaus demands to know, pulse racing. What the hell did Reggie write down to get Ben to make such a miserable face? What was bad enough Ben didn’t want him to know about that their siblings could find out?

Jesus Christ, did they read about what the ghosts actually looked like? What they screamed at him, day in, day out during his crappy childhood?

Was this newfound sympathy because they were afraid, he would relapse now that they knew how shitty his powers truly were? Did Ben keep his mouth shut to spare him the humiliation of knowing his siblings were waiting for him to fuck up his sobriety?

That explained why Five kept glaring at empty air every time Klaus so much as flinched when a ghost startled him by popping up out of nowhere. He was checking for ghosts, trying to get them to leave him alone.

Too bad intimidation was ineffective on the dead.

“My training? The first time I stole his whiskey bottle? My first overdose? The mausoleum?”

Diego’s jaw clenches, his grip turning bruising for a breath.

“You didn’t tell us it was a fucking _crypt_ he locked you up in.”

The accusation doesn’t sit right in the bubbling pot of anger boiling in Klaus’ stomach.

“What difference does it make to _you_?”

They’d given him the same sympathy they gave to Vanya the first time he brought it up. He had to participate in the chair circle of childhood trauma after all. Which meant he couldn’t show up empty handed as much as he liked to have pretended, he got away scoot free.

To them, the mausoleum wouldn’t have differentiated from a stuffy closet. Empty and dark and silent. Not full of screaming ghosts crowding his personal space with death threats on their tongues that he couldn’t sent away.

“A big fucking one!” Diego leaps up from his chair knocking it to the ground. “Hargreeves didn’t just lock you up. He—"

“What is going on here, boys?”

Grace’s voice interrupts and the fire sizzles out of Diego’s eyes like he got dossed by a bucket of ice water. The fingers around Klaus’ arm loosen their hold, and he uses that to slip away.

“Diego accidently cut himself, Mom, how clumsy of him.” Klaus says, forcing his face to brighten up. Diego’s head whips up to stare at him, eyes wide. “Could you please patch him up?”

Her eyes zoom in on the blood-stained towel, smile dimming. “Of course, dear,” she walks over, her heels clacking and reaches out to take Diego’s hand into her own. “That’s going to need stiches,” she tuts, tone chiding.

Diego pales a bit at the thought of the needle and the fear cools Klaus’ temper.

“I’ll leave you to it, Mom,” Klaus says, turning to head to upstairs. “I’m gonna wash off the blood. Don’t miss me too much, yeah?” He presses a kiss to her cheek, sweeping past her.

He ignores Diego’s burning stare drilling into his back.

Ben and him are going to have _words,_ when he comes home. Forget solidity for the next week. He’s going to ground that ghostly ass into invisibility.

* * *

_The field is full with flowers. Pretty whites and greys gleaming in the sun and swaying in the breeze. Kicking off his shoes, he walks into the grass, reaching down to pick up a daisy._

_“What are you doing?”_

_Klaus freezes, twisting around with his hands wrapped around the stem. “Shouldn’t you know?”_

_“That’s not how it works,” she says, annoyed. “You can’t just rip them out of the ground like that.”_

_“Isn’t it your job to know everything?” He folds his academy jacket sleeves back, prim and proper and then turns to look down at the flower in his hand. “Don’t worry, I’m picking and choosing them carefully. Look, it’s a dead one,” he waves the daisy back and forth, the petals already curling at the edges. He treads back to her, dumping the flower in her little basket._

_She glances down and then back up to him, lips curling into a sullen frown. “You’re not supposed to know that."_

_“Know what?”_

_“Which ones are dead up here or not,” She says. “There’s a reason I’m the one who picks and choses them. It’s my garden. Or do you see anyone else around here?”_

_Klaus jams his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “Guess, you’re not the only one anymore. Want to hire me as a gardener? I promise not to smoke your weed.” he grins cheekily._

_The girl narrows her eyes. “You’re annoying.”_

* * *

“I knew one of you would fuck up, but I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon,” Five says, visibly trying to reel in his temper, though he seems to be losing the fight if the flaring of his nostrils and furious pacing up and down the attic is anything to go by. “Three days, Diego, really?”

Diego slumps in his seat, arms crossed over his chest. “It wasn’t my fault, okay? Ben’s the one who spied on us and got the information all mixed up.”

None of the siblings look happy over him trying to shove off the blame to their dead brother, but Diego would be damned if he’s going down alone.

Luther shakes his head in disappointment while Five scoffs, “How convenient to blame the ghost who can’t talk back. I admit we should’ve taken into account that Ben would listen in on us, but he’s not the one who told on us, now is he?”

 _No,_ Allison’s notepad that she holds up, reads. _That was Diego._

Number Two flips her off.

“Guys, what’s done is done,” Vanya says, effectively breaking through the glaring match. “He knows now, or at least, he knows part of it and it’s not like we would have kept it a secret forever.”

“Why not?” Luther asks only to backtrack when Allison jams her elbow into his side and Vanya’s lips twists into a frown. “If he doesn’t remember what happened there’s no reason to bring it up. Not if it would hurt him and it will,” his eyes flicker from person to person, firm and resolute. “It hurt _us_ to read about it. How do you think Klaus is going to feel?”

A hush falls over the room as they look away from each other.

Allison looks down at her notepad in her lap, knuckles white around her pen. Five grits his teeth, fingers flexing at his sides like he itches to jump away. Diego shifts in his seat, taking out a knife he starts to flip in his hand—a nervous habit he hasn’t managed to outgrow. Luther’s hands are balled into fits in his lap, body hunched forwards with his arms resting on his knees. Vanya’s taking in deep shaky breathes, eyes squeezed shut and her skin looks a shade paler in the dim-light of the attic than it did before they came upstairs.

With another drawn-out exhale, she speaks, “We don’t,” she says simply. “And that’s the point. It’s his right to know, just like he deserves to feel and deal with the…accident in whatever way he sees fit. We can’t take that choice away from him—we’re not lying to each other anymore, remember?”

“It wasn’t an accident!” Diego stabs his knife into the small wooden table. “Don’t you dare write that off like that bastard wasn’t at fault. Hargreeves knew exactly what the risks were and he didn’t give a fuck. That sick son of a bitch was waiting for it. He wanted K-Klaus t-to—”

“I’m not defending _Dad_.” Vanya’s eyes flare up white making Diego fall silent. “I know how easy it is to make mistakes during training. What it feels like to lose control and desperately grasp at the reins, hoping to reel them back in. Left in the dark with the walls closing in the longer you spent stuffed into the box wondering if he’s ever going to let you out again—”

Five interjects when the table and chairs start shaking. “Vanya.” The soft, insistent sound of her name catches her attention, and she deflates with a shudder.

Allison wraps an arm around her, gently putting the notepad on her lap for her to read and whatever she’s written seemed to be the right thing to say to get the little flecks of white to fade out of their sister’s eyes.

“I’m just…he’s not alone and Dad’s not here anymore,” She wipes with the sleeves of her sweater at her eyes. “He’s got Ben and us…nothing ever good came from keeping secrets.”

Leaving his knife sticking into the table, Diego grunts. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I agree with the big guy for once. If him not remembering any of it is a side-effect than by all means we shouldn’t punch the gift out of the horse’s mouth.”

“That’s not how the saying goes, you idiot,” Five sighs, rubbing a palm against his forehead. “No wonder he got you to snitch when you two share the same brain cell.”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“It’s _nonsense_.”

“Guys,” Luther mutters tiredly. “Not the time.”

Diego snorts. “For Five, maybe. He’s never got time for anything.” He throws a side-eyed glance at their brother, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Five’s eyes turn icy. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why don’t you tell me, genius?” Diego challenges, rising from his seat. “Since you’re so smart it shouldn’t be hard for you to guess what an idiot like me is thinking, right?”

“Are you serious?” Vanya demands, shrilly, leaning away from Allison to glare at them. “You’re really doing this now? I can’t believe you.” She stands, snatching her hands away from Allison’s attempt to pull her back down.

“We should be talking about how to break the news to him. Not fight amongst ourselves because we’re feeling guilty and don’t know how to deal with that. Ben can’t keep him away from the house forever and what do you think is going to happen if he finds us here? You want to waste our time with arguing?”

She can still remember how much it hurt to walk into a room to see her siblings having a meeting without her. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone—that cold, lonely pit that formed in her stomach and tried to drown her from inside out.

“If, not how,” Diego corrects her, breaking eye-contact with Five to stare her down. “We still haven’t voted on telling him or not.”

“We can’t vote without all of us,” Luther says. “At least, not without Ben.”

Diego shoots him an incredulous look. “And how do you think we’re going to ask him if we can’t speak to him without letting Klaus know? Bring out a Ouija board and wait for him to move the glass?”

“Besides, we already know what Ben would vote,” Five dismisses the thought and jams his hands into his pockets. “Clearly, he hasn’t disclosed what happened to Klaus, so he wouldn’t want us to tell him. Or perhaps, he doesn’t want him to find out about what happened by himself.” He amends, recalling that Ben when he was present during family meetings used to empathize working on their communication.

Not that Five could blame him. Talking about their feelings without fighting made them all uncomfortable. It took away the layers of aggression, leaving them with the vulnerability and nothing to hide behind.

Allison claps her pen against her notepad before she holds it up. _Exactly,_ it reads, underlined twice. _He’s working with his powers now._ She flips the page. _What if it triggers these memories?_

They all grimaced at the thought, letting the idea sink in and form a picture. Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty.

“He’s going drink himself under the table,” Diego says, “If we’re lucky he’ll pass out before he gets his hands on the hard stuff. Worst case scenario, he’s going to pop every pill he comes across like they’re goddamn Tic Tacs and I don’t know about you guys, but I waited about twenty years for that sobriety and I’m not gonna let it go to waste by letting _him_ get wasted.”

Vanya perks up, though she doesn’t look happy. “So, we’re going to tell him then?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Diego waves her off and if his eyes weren’t suspiciously shiny, she’d take offense to being brushed off. “Better us than a shitty nightmare doing the honors. He shouldn’t be alone. Knowing him he’s going to mess around with his new power.”

“Ben wouldn’t let him,” Luther protests, but the faith rings empty in the fact that Ben can’t do anything Klaus doesn’t want him to do.

Diego speaks the obvious out loud, “You think Klaus will tun around to get a jacket after walking through Ben? No? Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Allison throws a crumpled ball of used paper at him that hits him on the forehead. Diego grumbles, but settles back down into his seat.

“Is he even going to believe us?” Luther questions, frowning. It wouldn’t be far-fetched of Klaus to write it off as a prank instead of taking them seriously.

Vanya fidgets in her seat, looking queasy. “We can show him the book as proof.”

Allison winces at the suggestion, paper crumbling underneath her hand and Diego looks two seconds away from stabbing the table with another knife.

“It’s better than the alternative,” Five mumbles more to himself than to the others, but their heads turn into his direction fast enough they should’ve gotten whiplash. “What?” he snaps.

“Out with it,” Diego demands, pointing at him with the tip of his knife. “You’re keeping shit from us again. After everything that happened, you’re still—”

“Five,” Vanya says. “What do you mean? What alternative is there?”

“Don’t even think about jumping away,” Luther adds, narrowing his eyes.

They stare at him in suspicion and Five relents, letting out an annoyed sigh. He reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose and shakes his head.

“Look,” he says slowly like he’s deliberately trying not to antagonize them. “When you came to me with that information, I took it upon myself to investigate. Hargreeves was a scientist that took a lot of pride in his research, which meant there was a chance other files or recordings were laying around we just didn’t know about and I didn’t want Klaus to find them on accident. So, I looked around.”

“And you found something,” Diego states, because it’s not a question.

“Yes,” Five says. “A tape.”

The knife clatters to the floor out of Diego’s slack grip while Allison chokes out a noise that resembles a dying engineer.

“A tape,” Vanya repeats after a beat of silence, looking like she wants to throw up. “Of that night?”

“I think so,” Five says. “I haven’t watched it yet.”

“Where did you find it?”

Rolling his eyes at Luther’s question, Five grits out, “If you don’t have any sensible questions to ask, then I’m out. Like Vanya said, we should use the time Ben bought us wisely.”

“Hold it,” Diego growls. “There’s no way in hell you’re fucking off now to watch that tape.”

“If you want to do this the right way, I’ll need to watch it,” Five hisses. “Hargreeves notes are clinical. Objective. He wrote about what he saw without taking Klaus’ emotional responses into consideration because to him they were useless. They don’t offer more than the barest minimum about the incident itself, because he was more interested in the aftermath. That’s too little information to go off on. Even your pea-sized brain should understand the fragility of our situation.”

Allison rises to her feet, stomping her heel into the ground. _We’re all watching,_ her notepad says and she gives him a glare daring him to refuse.

“Are you sure?” Five throws a side-eyed glance at Vanya, who steels her expression into something determined, meeting his stare without wavering. “It’s not going to be pretty. We don’t have enough time to take breaks if one of you decides they can’t stomach what they’re seeing.”

“We’ll take a bucket with us, then,” Luther says, firmly and stands. “We’re doing this together or not at all.”

Five’s gaze flickers from Vanya to Diego, then to Allison and Luther, scrutinizing them with sharp, calculating eyes and when nobody seems to back down, he lets out a groan, gesturing for them to get a move on.

“Fine.” Five raises his hands, scowling. “Be in the monitoring room in three minutes or I’ll start without you. I’m going to check the house for Klaus.”

With that Five jumps away, leaving them to hurry downstairs.

* * *

_“I like your dress,” he tells her now that his tears have dried. “It’s pretty.”_

_White and airy, made of smooth silk. Or a cloud. The girl looks comfortable in her skin. More comfortable than he's ever felt in his stuffy boring old uniform with the tight collar that makes it hard to breath with the tie around his neck closing in on him like a noose and the tailored jacket he never gets to take off even in the blazing heat of summer._

_He wishes he could wear one too. He’d rock a dress and this time he’ll leave the shoes off, eye-catching and fun as they are, he’s never been a fan of footwear. Or falling down the stairs._

_But his clothes stick to him, wet and damp in places, torn in others. A white dress would become dirty._

_He’d wear a red one as brilliant as Mom’s smile. Perhaps a black one, cool and sleek that he can wear everywhere. That way Dad can’t call him unprofessional anymore._

_He’ll probably go with black. Come to think of it he doesn’t like the color red much. He sees it far too often and the stains it makes on his uniform are hard to get out. Blue and red clash horribly._

_“You’re not going to ask?” The girl doesn’t smile when she looks at him._

_The most she does is pull faces._

_“No,” he snorts. “As long as it’s quiet, I don’t give a rat’s ass if we’re in hell or Mexico.”_

_He’s never found silence in a place. It’s like a dream became true._

_Dream or not, Klaus never wants to wake up._

* * *

The tape is nine hours long.

There’s no time to waste on watching Number Four rock back and forth in the dark. No reason to torture themselves for a second longer than they need to while watching their brother be tortured.

So, Five jumps into his bedroom, rummages through his drawers full of books until he gets his hand on Hargreeves’ notebook. He flips it open and looks through the pages for the hour mark down to the exact minute. Closing the book after he finds it, he leaves it on his desk, jumping downstairs to the others.

He’ll put it back in its hiding spot later when he has the time.

For now, he’s got other priorities to worry about.

* * *

_“It’s time for you to go.” She leads him to a lake without bothering to turn around._

_He drags his feet and thinks about running. There’s no bruising grip around his wrist or arm to yank him forward. Nothing to keep him from escaping. Sweat begins to soak his skin, cold and clammy in the soft breeze rustling the grass, the naked tree branches bending with the wind._

_But he’s never made it far before, never gotten past three steps, so he lets the thought shrivel up like the dried leaves they’re trudging on and the wind carries it away far out of reach._

_“I don’t want to go,” he says and then wonders why. His begging was wasted breath and tears and only ever seemed to make it worse. “You can’t make me.”_

_“Pick and choose,” She gives him an unimpressed look as she turns around, one hand on her hip. She shakes her basket full of lowers for emphasis. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that already because I hate repeating myself.”_

_“Exactly!” He throws his hands into the air, pointing an accusing finger at her. “If you’re gonna pick me then I’m choosing to say no.” he grins smugly, putting his hands onto his hip to mirror her stance._

_She tilts her head to the side, letting out an irritated groan that sounds so much like Five, Klaus’ grin falters, the fresh loss stinging like salt in an open wound._

_“This place is off limits for you,” she grumbles. “You can’t make choices here, that’s why you need to go. What you end up picking ends up in my basket.” She gestures to the lake impatiently. “Now go and don’t come back.”_

_“Your hospitality could use some work,” Klaus complains, choosing to not ask her the questions he wants answers to because this way she can’t refuse to answer them. “Because it’s shit. That’s not how you treat guests. No wonder no one hangs around. I bet you don’t have any friends.”_

_“You don’t either,” She retorts and it stings. Probably because it’s true._

_Klaus’ smile turns upside down. “I thought you’d enjoy my company. Seems pretty lonely here.”_

_“I can’t enjoy something I don’t want,” she says, straight-faced despite dishing out insults like she’s serving a five-course meal at a fancy restaurant. “Some people might, so go back to them and stop wasting my time.”_

* * *

“Is Five in his room? I wanted to talk to him.”

 _“I can go check,”_ Ben offers and without waiting for an answer walks through the house walls to check. After the argument they had—the first one that Klaus _won_ in years, not that it felt much like a victory with Ben’s lies leaving a bitter taste in his mouth, his brother tried to make up for the “little misunderstanding” as he called it.

Which meant less arguing about his choices and generally being more agreeable to his ideas.

Taking a drag of his cigarette, Klaus waits for Ben to reappear.

 _“Room’s empty,”_ Ben says, leaning against the brick wall of the alley near the dumpster a minute later. Perks of being a ghost, less travel time to endure. _“Either he’s out or taking a shower.”_

“Jackpot,” Klaus chuckles, dropping his cigarette and crushing it underneath his heel. Turning around he goes to climb up the fire escape, Ben’s confused questions about what he’s doing falling on deaf ears. It doesn’t take him long to get to Five’s room, easing the window open and swan-diving inside without making much noise.

Rolling to his feet, he takes pride in the fact he could become a full-time thief next time he needs a bit of pocket money.

 _“Hey, you can come back later,”_ Ben walks around him, blocking his way. Eyes frantically darting towards the door. _“C’mon, Klaus, you know he hates people being in his room. Go downstairs and eat something instead of waiting around for him here.”_

“Which is why if they wanted to hide something from little old me, they’d put it into the old man’s room,” Klaus winks, twirling around Ben, who froze in shock. “Drugs taught me a lot of things, y’know and looking for shit to pawn isn’t that different from playing hide and seek. Now, let’s see where our treasure is.”

He’s got about fifteen minutes if Five’s in the shower. That’s not a lot of time, but Klaus will take what he can get. This would be so much faster, if he got Ben to cooperate, but nobody seems to want to let him in on the secret and that won’t do.

He’s not going to be the new Vanya, thank you very much. Next thing he knows is they’ll try to relocate his bedroom down into the basement cell.

Looking around and hissing when Ben’s hand falls through his shoulder, his eyes fall onto Five’s desk.

Where a small, black notebook with Daddy’s initials is laying on.

Creeping forward, Klaus tentatively pokes the book, waiting for an alarm to blare to life or for poisonous darts to shoot out of the wall. Whatever Five’s trap slash security system might be.

Nothing happens and Klaus lets out a sigh of relief. Cool, then. Talk about stuff being presented on a silver plate. Maybe he should go buy a ticket for the lottery with how much luck he seems to be having. He might win and their lawyers could stop bitching about their inheritance and taxes.

“Are you sure the others don’t want me to take a peek?” Klaus’ lips quirk up in amusement, waving the book under Ben’s nose. His brother attempts to grab it out of his hands and Klaus teasingly holds it up above his head. “Now, now, Benny, that’s not very nice,” he tuts. “That’s my diary, not yours.”

 _“Put it down!”_ Ben shouts and it startles Klaus into freezing. _“You already know what’s in there. Diego told you what it was about, right? There’s no need to let Dad hurt you again by reading the crap about the mausoleum. Don’t put yourself back in there, please.”_

Lowering his arm, Klaus shakes his head. “Nice try,” he allows, staring down at the book in his hands. His fingers brush across the golden script, tracing the letters. “But I want to hear what Papa dearest got to say about our little field trips. Nothing nice, I bet, knowing him.”

Ben grits his teeth and turns his head away, shoulders drawn up to his ears. The hoodie obscures his face in shadows from this angle, so Klaus can’t get a read on what kind of face he makes.

Not a pretty one for sure.

Flipping the book open, Klaus begins to read.

* * *

_Hell, Klaus images, isn’t fiery bright and toasty warm. There won’t be red-burnt skin and vast swathes of flames burning into the sky like the world’s shittiest heater nor would there be ash raining down to earth in a parody of snowflakes._

_No. Hell can’t be anything less than minus a thousand degrees._

_A place so cold frostbite gnaws at the skin. There’s a single ray of light shining through the cracks into the crypt to cast shadows. Figures will loom, each one more grotesque than the last, a sea of misery ready to drown him in their wails. Their icy hands will sink into his flesh, cooling him down until his skin turns pale enough to rival their own. Bruises of red, yellow and black will form, throbbing while the chill runs him through like a spear._

_Klaus doesn’t have faith in the beyond, in whatever may come after ghosts rot out of existence, but sitting here, in the dark, damp space surrounded by death, he believes in hell._

_“Dad…” he croaks out on a dry tongue, keeping his eyes closed. His heart is beating furiously in his chest, breaths quick and labored as he sweats through his fear, but he’s not dumb enough to stare at a door that won’t open before his time is over and seeing the dark is better than looking at the ghosts._

_“…please…I promise I won’t do drugs anymore,” his voice splinters like wood underneath an axe. “I mean it. I pinky swear to you, if you let me out, I’ll never look at drugs again. Never ever.” He chants the last two words, stuck on a loop._

Diego bites his lips hard enough to bleed, eyes stuck onto the screen. Vanya’s trembling quietly besides him, pressing into his side while Five is shaking for a different reason, anger setting his gaze ablaze.

_It’s a lie. Of course, he’ll stuff himself full of the pills in his desk drawer. But Dad doesn’t want the truth—excuses as he calls them, so Klaus lies and lies and lies._

* * *

****

**_Subject Number 00.04 appears to suffer from delusions about ending his training session before the additional hour is over. There has never been an instance where such a thing has been permitted outside of lethal sickness. Side-note: Subject may suffer from the backlashes of withdrawal still._ **

* * *

_“I’ll be good. I won’t misbehave anymore,” he’s babbling, head spinning from the flickering images hovering above him, suffocating him with their icy breaths. Their hands reach into his chest and wrap around his lungs, squeezing out air like they’re squishing a stress ball. From the amount of stress bubbling up inside him, the name is fitting. “Really, I won’t. So, let me out. Please, just let me out.”_

_No answer beyond the screaming. They’re so loud. So, fucking loud Dad won’t hear him._

_“I’m not afraid anymore!” He shouts, voice thick with tears. He shouldn’t cry. His water bottles are empty and he has no freaking clue when the door will open again._

_If it ever will._

Allison lets out a whimper, turning to hide her face in Luther’s shoulder.

“Five,” Luther swallows, guilt festering as he glances at Vanya’s ashen face, recalling her hammering on the glass as her fingers grew bloody. “Can’t we skip this?”

“It’s not my fault the time’s off,” Five snaps, passing forward slowly in fear of missing something. “The bastard must’ve gotten it wrong in his excitement.” He stops after another five minutes, crossing his arms to stop himself from punching his fist through the monitor screen.

Vanya lays a hand on his shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze.

“We know,” she assures, voice shaking. Five doesn’t shrug her off.

_“Shut up, shut up, shut up…” he moans, hands tightly pressed over his ears. “Shut the fuck up!”_

_His ears are bleeding. They must be from all that awful noise. His skull is splitting open and the walls are closing in. Coming closer and closer, boxing him in._

_Fear is clogging up his throat and he’s fallen silent some time ago. Dad won’t buy his bullshit, his wishes, and repeating them into existence won’t work. He’s not Allison._

_It’s been so long. So, blissfully long since he’s being here. Half a year. He must have done something to draw Dad’s attention to himself—he was so close to being free. Free of this hell, free enough to walk on a leash with the dead, but now he was stuck again._

_What did Dad want from him? He was a lost cause and his powers were so useful he might as well have been born without them. That would have saved him a shit ton of grief. He would’ve been happy, as happy as Five must be now that he fucked off to—_

_Sucking in a sharp breath, chills crawl up his spine._

_Five._

_That’s why he was here._

_Dad didn’t believe him. Said he wasn’t looking hard enough. Had pestered and prodded until after three weeks of trying day in, day out, his patience had snapped and here they were. Self-sabotaging was pathetic and he shouldn’t let his fear keep Five away._

_It was his fault. He didn’t want Five to look like one of them, so he kept him away. From his family._

_Slowly, the realization sinks in._

_Dad won’t let him out._

_Not without Five._

_A fresh wave of tears slides down his cheeks. Uncurling a little, he lets go of his legs to ball his hands into fists. He thinks of Five, his surly frown and smug grins. His palms sweaty from teleporting too much. The sound of his voice becoming louder in his ears. How baby blue his eyes were and how he hated having them compared to the sky._

_Five could get him out._

_Klaus’ palms begin to glow a faint blue._

* * *

**_00:53 A surge in power is detected. The thermal sensors appear to pick up on several heat signatures below the freezing point. 00.04 does not appear to have noticed the change yet._ **

* * *

Unconsciously all of them straighten up, their spines growing stiff. Bracing themselves for what’s to come, they watch with bated breath as hazy blue shapes take form around their brother and inside the mausoleum.

Diego leans close enough the glow of the monitor brightens up his face and Vanya shuffles forward, using her small height to her advantage to get a front row seat.

Time hits the breaks as a hand latches onto Klaus’ ankle, solid and real and their brother’s head snaps up from his knees in obvious shock.

The forms begin to flesh out.

* * *

**_01:02 First manifestations of the non-living take place. 00.04’s powers bring forth spirits in masses, most of them appearing with various injuries among their person. From elderly to young. The dead do not seem to welcome 00.04 among their resting place which further proves my belief that looking him away inside the mausoleum would prove to desensitize him of his fears._ **

* * *

Faces, ashen and bloody appear out of thin air, gnarly limbs shoving at each other as a crowd forms around their brother, and the tape freezes. No noise, no sound is heard over the recording and the scene remains unmoving.

Then the inhuman shrieking starts.

Klaus glances from the rotting hand on his leg up to the burnt face and screams.

High and blood curdling loud, a torn sound pulled straight out of his chest. So full of fear Five’s hackle raise and his vision bleeds red as his brain goes into override with the single thought of getting the threat away from his brother.

But he can’t do anything but watch. This is nothing more than a memory caught on camera. As much as Five wants to jump into the screen, back into time—he can’t.

Vanya yelps, covering her ears on instinct while she flinches backwards into Diego. Allison follows, making low pained sounds as she presses her hands to her ears, though she doesn’t dare blink in fear of missing even the smallest detail.

“Oh G-God…” Diego chokes out, wide-eyed.

_“No, no, no!” Klaus shrieks, flailing through the crowd of bruising hands to stumble to the door. His legs are unsteady, tingling all over from having fallen asleep, bruised and bloody._

_“Get off, get off, no, no, no—”_

_His palms hit the door with a resounding smack and he scrambles against cold, rough stone. Beating his fists against the door._

_“Dad!” He screams, loud and lost in the panic blindsiding him. “Let me out—please! They’ll kill me, they’ll kill me, Dad, please let me out.”_

_Blood trickles down his fists and he pounds away, pressing forward against the hands tugging him backwards by his jacket with single-minded terror._

_“PLEASE!” A hand grabs him by the hair, fingers curling around the collar of his shirt. “DAD!”_

* * *

**_The non-living initiate hostile contact. 00.04’s begging lacks any finery of control he needs to get out of the situation. While his spike of power seems promising, there is little else setting him apart from a ticking time-bomb should he be unable to control his manifestations. Such uncontrolled raw power in the dead can be as much of an asset as it can be a danger to the team. Depending on how long his power remains running wild while he is in danger, the results will prove what future precautions must be taken in order to establish a sense of safety within the group. Having 00.04 accidently conjure the victims of the Academy is a risk that I won’t be taking for as long as it remains to be seen if 00.05, should he be dead, could access his power in a non-living state._ **

* * *

“F-Fuck,” Diego’s fist slams onto the table. “Fuck!”

“Oh my God.” Vanya’s knees buckle and send her to the floor as she cries with their brother, listening to him scream as he’s pulled backwards and swallowed by the mass of ghosts. “I can’t watch this…I—I need to go.”

She scrambles away, towards the bathroom judging from the strangled sound of her voice, catching herself on the doorway as she runs, shattering the light bulb in the hall.

Allison cups her hands over her mouth, stifling her sobs and if it wasn’t for Luther’s arm steading her around her waist, she would’ve sunken to the floor.

Luther holds her close for comfort, horrified about what they’re watching. Their brother— _baby-faced, thirteen-year-old Klaus_ —is being ripped apart by the undead and Luther can’t think of a single reason that would justify their Father in this. He waits, hoping against all odds that the doors would open to reveal Reginald rushing in to his son’s aid, but it remains firmly shut, unmoving and far too heavy for Klaus to open by himself even now.

Luther could’ve. Now and at thirteen, he could’ve pried that stone-cold door open and gotten his brother out to safety. Out of all of them, save for Five who looks torn between rage and retching, he had been the only one capable of saving their brother.

And what did he do? Nothing. One had been jealous of the frequent training trips Dad offered to Four.

How long did Klaus sit inside these walls, listening to these godawful screams, scared out of his mind, waiting desperately for one of them to notice he was gone—to come and get him out of there? How long had he waited for _Luther_ before he realized no one was looking?

Tearing himself away from Allison, he lunges for the trash can and gags.

_It hurts. It hurts worse than the time he fell down the stairs—nails are piercing his flesh, scratching along every limb they can reach. He’s lost his jacket in the struggle, kicking and screaming until blood coats his tongue. Fingers bruise his arms and legs, groping and pressing down along his bones._

_“Stop!” He cries, choking when a pair of hands wrap his neck._

_They squeeze, making him wheeze and he’s twisting and shaking as he loses his shoes, held in cobra tight grips with no room to go. Hot white pain shots up his left wrist and right shoulder—_

* * *

****

**_01:14 – Time of death._ **

**_The cause of death is most likely to be strangulation._ **

**_00.04’s powers did not run out of fuel to give, though he appears to have lost concussion half-way through. The non-living’s manifestations broke once it was made apparent that 00.04 has died._ **

**_A loss that will hardly impact the team’s function, but a loss nonetheless. I’ve had high hopes for Number Four’s potential, slowed by his fear and impacted by his attempts to poison himself as it was, however, my expectations have not been met. A truly disappointing waste of my time._ **

* * *

Diego hears the screaming fade, ears ringing from listening to his little brother scream his throat raw. His fists are clenched hard enough he thinks he tore his stiches on the hand Mom patched up a few days ago, blood dripping down to stain the carpeted floor an ugly brown.

Christ, it was so much worse than what he thought it’d be. Then again, he couldn’t imagine it, didn’t really want to paint a picture out of Reginald’s notes the first time he’d read them and it wasn’t for lack of creativity regarding the ghosts. Reading about this wasn’t the same as helplessly seeing it happen.

For them it hadn’t sunken in. Not truly—none of them had believed what Reginald had written down. It was too outrageous, too far-fetched to consider true. Now there was no longer any deniability to hide behind.

Because they’d seen their brother cry, each unanswered heart-rending whine for their Dad becoming quieter with every breath until the screaming died down altogether and Klaus stopped breathing.

Diego couldn’t get over the blood.

There’s so _much_.

Staining the floor and torn remains of the Academy uniform, a steady puddle growing under the unmoving body near the door, legs outstretched. He’s found Klaus numerous times in the same position, sprawled out in some alleyway, near a dumpster and as kids even outside in the snow.

_(“Aren’t you c-cold?” Two asked, stutter made worse in the icy breeze. Mom wanted him to go check on Four, who blinked up owlishly at him, not bothering to get up from the ground._

_“Nah,” Four said, blowing him a raspberry. “It’s pretty chill out here.”_

_Two eyed the rosy cheeks and nose on his brother’s face dubiously. “I think you should come b-back inside n-now.”_

_“But why?” Four moves his arms and legs, shoving snow away. “Look, Dee, I’m making angels. Aren’t they pretty?”_

_Two looks from the crudely drawn dicks in the snow, to the snowman that could’ve been Luther that Ben, Five and Klaus had shaped earlier before the other two wanted to warm up, to the leftover imprint of a person in a dress lying in the snow a few feet away._

_“The prettiest,” Two assures, biting back a grin at watching Four’s face light up. “C’mon, Mom’s making u-us hot chocolate.”_

_Four perks up, accepting the offered hand and letting Two pull him up. His brother’s hand is icy, nearly frozen stiff and he doesn’t dare let go as he marches them back into the house, berating the lack of gloves while discreetly trying to rub warmth into frigid skin._

_Mom doesn’t mind his little white lie, already setting up two mugs when she catches sight of them.)_

Diego’s eyes sting fiercely and he swallows down the lump in his throat, chin trembling.

How many of those times that Diego hasn’t been there for to pick him up and put him back on his feet ended with his brother jerking awake after having frozen to death? How many miraculous recoveries after overdosing weren’t miracles at all?

How many times did he lose his brother without knowing he lost him?

A tug at his pant leg jostles him back into focus.

 _Breathe,_ Allison mouths, tear-tracks on her face while she tugs at his pants and points to his throat. _Breathe. In. Out._

He must’ve stopped breathing without noticing again. The last time he fell back into his shock response was when he had to turn off Grace—

Diego exhales like someone sucker-punched him in the chest. He stumbles backwards into one of the chairs they shoved off to the side, putting his face into his hands and shakes, light-headed and sick with grief.

“Five,” Luther says, wiping his mouth and resting a hand on the back of his chair. “It’s over.”

Five doesn’t move. Eyes stuck to the screen that turned black, glassy and unblinking. He can’t close them without recalling dead green eyes and unmoving lips. Pale skin, dirty with dust and soot, laying face-down in the rubble of their house.

Dead to the world but not for long.

As kids his siblings always used to get on his case for being too impatient, complaining about his fast pace they couldn’t keep up with. Five let them know it’s not his problem none of them could catch up, taking pride in being the first one—the best at everything. He hadn’t thought rushing through life was a flaw until he got himself stuck in the apocalypse.

Alone in every sense of the word. Or so he thought.

Because he couldn’t bother to wait, couldn’t bear to look at his siblings for longer than a fleeting minute, he buried his brother alive during the apocalypse.

Over thirty years stuck in a makeshift hole in the ground.

Waking up only to suffocate painfully. Trying to crawl a way out, not knowing who put him into another prison—another mausoleum, leaving him to rot like the dead.

Again, and again and _again_.

For years, nothing but isolation, dirt and dust and the dark. Left alone to his thoughts and lack of oxygen. Klaus, who’d hung fairy lights over his bed to chase away the night, who wore all black because his whole life had been nothing but an on-going funeral for every ghost he couldn’t chase away and who’d stuffed himself full of drugs to numb his fear and fill his head with the high of hot air, so he won’t ever be cold again.

Sweet Number Four, as Vanya had put it in the lines of her book, the thing that had been a poor substitute for his siblings he wouldn’t have needed had he bothered to _wait_ a day more—

Five took that vulnerability, all that unwavering goodwill and snuffed the light out of a life not even the apocalypse could smoother underneath its flames.

A sharp, terrified scream pierces the air and Five is on his feet, his chair rolling away as he disappears in a flash of blue light before he recognizes the person who makes that tortured noise.

* * *

**_Incident – 08/19/03 – Section B_ **

**_I found my former disappointment in 00.04’s death to be unfound. His potential is far greater than I initially thought. Against my belief Number Four has managed to come back from the dead, a feat even I, in my years of experience and research have found no way to accomplish yet._ **

**_His recovery rate is simply astonishing. All that has been left to show despite photographic evidence to the contrary are multiple degrees of bruising littering across his skin, several scratch marks and gashes, a bite wound on the left side of his upper leg, a mild concussion and a sprained wrist._ **

**_00.04 does not have seem to remember his resurrection or the incident._ **

**_He seems to suffer from a mild case of blood loss and shock. His apparent disorientation and confusion could be a side-effect from coming back from the dead. Future testing could fasten the results and extend on his healing abilities, but proceedings are too risky to consider._ **

**_As of now, he will recover in solitude in the infirmary, confided to bedrest for the time being. Fortunately, the rest of the children have become desensitized by 00.04’s absence from an early age and will be easily dissuaded from finding out his whereabouts._ **

**_Looking at the yearlong experience I’ve collected it’s safe to assume they most likely won’t notice his absence at all._ **

* * *

The book falls from his hands, landing on the floor with a dull thud. The pages are splayed open to reveal a photo of his thirteen-year-old self: eyes closed, lips a faint blue with a coat of bruises in the shape of hands visible around his slender neck. Laying on a metal table, clad in his dirty, blood-stained uniform, or what was left of it.

He remembers waking up on that table, limbs frozen and stiff, to see a looming shadow over him blocking the glaring white lights. Flinty eyes staring down at him in visible surprise and the gleam of a monocle. Icy fingers clad in gloves tracing along the lines of his pulse, the touch feather-light but constricting. Klaus remembers the terror keeping his arms and legs strapped to the table better than the actual restraints Reginald used to keep him from escaping the infirmary later.

_“Welcome back to the land of the living, Number Four.”_

“He knew…” Klaus whispers, looking at his trembling hands. “…all this time he fucking knew I could-”

He can see the warm blood staining his hands. His own and Dave’s. Burning to touch and impossible to wash off.

Back in the rave he brushed his resurrection of as a fluke. A whim of God and dumb luck. Had he known he couldn’t stay dead; he could’ve saved Dave. Taken the bullet and gotten back up on his feet later to return to someone waiting for him to come back home.

Dave wouldn’t have died. Klaus would still be _whole_.

Fingers curling into fists, his hands begin to glow. His heavy breaths begin to fog over and the distant noise of pounding footsteps come down the hall. He can hear Ben call his name from underwater, can feel himself shaking.

“That’s why he stopped?” There’s a high-pitched sound of laughter, Klaus realizes, that’s squeezed out from his lungs. “Because I killed myself?”

 _“You didn’t kill yourself.”_ Ben spits out, angrier than he’s ever heard. _“That was—"_

“An accident? Dad’s fault? The _ghosts_?” Klaus’ lips twist into a quivering smile as the glass of the open window begins to frost over in the sudden chill. “I stepped onto the landmine he set out. It was _me_. I stomped onto the bomb when I could’ve disabled it.”

Running his hands through his hair, he tugs, shaking his head. His ribs are pressing inward like a car compactor, crushing the bone, pressing down on him from all sides. He can’t suck in enough air and he flinches away from Ben’s outstretched hand, hugging himself.

“No,” he croaks out. “No, don’t touch me. You—you _knew_ —"

Dad had known about his ability, waited for him to die to speak with him, the utter _prick_ , and kept it a secret—just like the rest of them did.

“—but you kept your mouth shut. So, shut the hell up now!” He jabs a finger at Ben’s face, baring his teeth in a snarl. “You blew your chance. Game-over. No more half-assed retries to save your sorry ass by dishing out half-baked excuses—"

The door slams open and his siblings rush in. It gets slammed shut a second later, the sound of moaning and furious shouting is muffled through the door. Their heaving gasps for breathes shattering the faux calmness holding him together like a bullet through glass.

He bends down and carefully picks up the book, aware of the wide-eyed stares.

Five steps forward, leaving Luther to hold the door closed. “Klaus—”

He lifts his head, turning to stare at the pale, horrified faces of his siblings—their disheveled appearances and fearful eyes—and hurls the book at Five. His brother brings up his arms to shield himself, the book bouncing off his forearm with a startled yelp.

Hitting his mark does nothing to quell the wave of fury threatening to drown him.

Five grimaces and rubs his arm. “Okay, I deserved that,” he says, quietly.

Diego swats him in the back of his head. “No shit.” He steps forward holding up his palms.

“Hey, man,” he says, softly. “I get you’re not happy with us right now—”

“Understatement of the year,” Luther mumbles, wincing at the pounding on the other side of the door.

“—but I swear, we’d have told you.”

“Like you told me the first three times I asked?” Klaus snaps, throwing his brother a watery glare. His heart was thudding in his chest, louder than it had any right to be.

Diego winces, looking ashamed. “That’s on me, but reading about what he did to y-you, God, that’s—we didn’t know. H-How to tell y-you, I mean.” He rubs a hand over his face, cursing under his breath.

“I’m sorry,” Vanya steps forward, eyes red-rimmed and earnest. Her face is puffy and tear-streaked like she’s cried recently and just tried to compose herself and her voice wobbles when she speaks.

“I’m so sorry. We should’ve told you and I’m sorry we waited too long and you had to find out this way, but we’re here for you now.”

Allison nods, holding her arms open and Klaus wants to scream. To tear into the vulnerability, he sees and let the guilt fester and spread like a disease. They’d deserve retribution for leaving him in the dark for days—for thinking they knew what was best for him without asking him because that’s something _Dad_ would’ve done and he hates feeling helpless more than he hates the man himself.

“You’re a bunch of assholes,” he says, seeing them flinch. Allison’s arms falter and drop back down to her sides. “Especially _you_.” He turns to glare at Ben, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Lying to me like that.”

 _“I wanted to spare you the grief,”_ Ben says, hanging his head. _“I should’ve known you wouldn’t listen. You never do.”_

“How about you spare me your pity?” Klaus curls his lip in disgust, pretends seeing Ben’s shoulders hunch up as he turns away, recoiling from him doesn’t hurt like acid on his skin. “Instead of your good Samaritan schtick? For someone that’s always yapping about talking about everything you’re awfully quick to fall back on your words.”

Ben opens his mouth, promptly snapping it shut when he thinks better of arguing now, glancing towards the rest of their siblings helplessly.

“That’s what I thought,” Klaus shakes his head, giving a sardonic smile. “You’re so full of shit.”

Full of lies and of course they wouldn’t have told _him_. Nobody ever tells him anything—not even when it’s about himself. Funny how they never had a problem pointing out his flaws, rubbing them into his face at every chance they got and _now_ they decide to keep quiet.

Luther grunts with effort, pressing himself harder against the door as the wailing behind the wood grows louder and louder.

“What exactly was your aim here?” His blood is rushing in his ears, boiling like a tea kettle. “C’mon, Five, you’ve always been one for big plans and I’d really like to know. What was your grand plan this time?” He beckons Five to speak with a wave of his hand. “Pretend it never happened? Bury it back in the backyard like Daddy would’ve done to me, if I hadn’t woken up soon enough?”

Five’s face goes ashy white at his words.

If Klaus didn’t know any better, he’d say his brother looked burdened by guilt. But he _does_ know better because when have his siblings ever admitted to being in the wrong? When did the fault not lie in him and his fucked-up choices?

He can hear it clearer than the crystals he used to snort.

_It’s your own fault. If you hadn’t been so weak, if you hadn’t manifested these ghosts, you wouldn’t have died._

A smaller part of him whispers, _if you hadn’t been sober, nothing would’ve happened._

It always came back to the fucking drugs. God, does he want a drink right now. Make it two—a bottle. Anything to take the edge off.

Turning on his heels, he marches towards the window to the fire-escape.

“Woah, hold it,” A hand grips his shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out.” Klaus tries to push past him but Diego holds on tight. Making a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, Klaus hisses, “Let go, Diego!”

“No, no listen—” Diego forces him to turn around, holding him by the shoulders, giving him a little shake when Klaus tries to knock his hands away. “—would you _stop_ _it_ already?”

He leans in close, far too close, angry and desperate and Klaus’ breath catches in his throat, watching the tan melt into ashen grey. The rotten stench of death fans across his face, exhaled in a puff of humid air that brings tears to his eyes and—

_—the hands around his throat tighten ever so slightly, icy to the point of freezing. His neck aches, lolling back and forth as the grip jolts him, his own fingers scrambling to tear the ones crushing his windpipe away._

_Disembodied voices shout him deaf, their jaws unhinged to scream, lips torn and skin decaying, and he makes a wheezing noise that would’ve meant for them to stop as dark spots flicker in the hovering pale shadows looming over him, but they won’t listen—they won’t stop—_

“—don’t crowd him!” a voice exclaimed, urgent and firm. “He needs space— _Space_ , Diego, come back over here.”

The hands that had been on his shoulders were holding him up now as another voice replied, “He needs someone to keep him from cracking his skull open!”

“Do you not know what personal space means?” Five, he thinks, that scathing voice could never be anyone else. “It means let go of him so he can fucking _breathe_.”

 _“You’re making it worse,”_ Ben sounds twice as angry as Five normally feels, that’s never a good sign. He can’t recall the last time he’s heard him so close to losing his cool—probably when Luther locked Vanya away in that basement chamber. _“Move back, don’t shout and don’t touch him.”_

The hands reluctantly let go of him and Klaus sinks down to the floor, scooting backwards until he felt the wall behind his back, legs pulled up to his chest. Taking a minute to breath with Ben gently coaxing him to _“In for four seconds and out. In and out. That’s it. Just like how we practiced, remember? It’s just me, Klaus, nobody’s keeping you here.”_ The walls of grey stone fade back into the scribbles of Five’s handwriting.

Green, smooth curtains. Pale bed sheets. The afternoon sun lazily shines through the open window glass above his head, casting a glow to the floor in front of him. He can feel the soft breeze brush against his hair and the nape of his neck.

He’s not in the mausoleum.

Not anymore.

 _“You good?”_ Ben asks, sitting on the edge of the bed a careful foot away.

“No,” the word tumbles out of his mouth, dry with dust he shouldn’t be able to taste on his tongue. “No, I’m—fuck no. I don’t…Christ, Dad was such a bastard.”

He keeps his eyes stuck on the spot on the floor where sunshine warms up the wood. Someone makes a pained noise and he couldn’t care less to find out who it was.

It’s nothing new that Reginald was an asshole, still is in the afterlife, or a murderer. Klaus knew that better than anyone else in the house. How far dear old Papa would go to get results but he’d thought, that maybe, he would draw the line at killing his son.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ Ben says, miserably.

Vanya softly clears her throat. “We are, too. I know how hard it can be to swallow bad news when they hit you out of nowhere. We wanted to break them to you as gently as we could…but we were too late. I’m sorry it took us too long.”

“Break them _gently_?” Klaus scoffs bitterly, forgoing the chance to make an innuendo. “How? You’d what, bake me a cake and write “I’m sorry Dad let the fucking dead murder you for funsies” on the top with frosting?”

He looks up with a glare, daring any of them to snap at him only to falter when he notices he’s not the only one crying.

Allison and Vanya are weeping, not bothering to wipe the tear tracks on their cheeks away. Ghosts can’t cry, but he thinks Ben is the closest they can get to it. Five is staring at the book with a clenched jaw, hair a disheveled mess, his chest heaving with the forced calm breath he sucks in through his nose and Diego is flexing his hands like he wants to punch someone, pacing up and down the room.

Luther moves away from the door, warily glancing between it and Klaus and when he looks down, he catches sight of blue light fading from his hands. Shaking out his hands, he sniffles.

“It’s not fair,” he mutters, one hand clasped around the dog tags around his neck tight enough to cut into his palm while he looks at Ben. “I could’ve saved you.”

Dave and Ben, the only two people he wanted to save—who he’d loved and needed more fiercely than his drugs. He could’ve saved them, built a life where Dave would greet him with a smile every day, remind him there was more to living than the numbness he’d grown to call home. A life where Ben’s heart would beat for himself, not for others, ever curious to soak up knowledge and to travel the world.

Everything Klaus ever wanted could’ve been, had he known he could’ve had it at all.

Ben’s eyes grow wide. _“You—God, Klaus, no. I wouldn’t have wanted that.”_

Apparently, he’s too drained from his freak out to keep Ben visible any longer because none of his siblings react to the protest. Almost like they’re approaching a wild animal, they inch closer, Allison and Vanya joining him on the floor while Diego pulls the desk chair over.

Five blinks over to lean against the wall with his back, enough space between him and Klaus that another person could’ve sat down, and Luther shuffles over to hover awkwardly near their circle.

Diego shifts on his seat, glancing from the book to Klaus. “Do you…do you remember now?”

Five throws him a heated glare while Allison makes a scandalized noise, reaching over to slap him on the knee.

Klaus nods shakily.

“Oh,” Diego says softly, sounding heartbroken. “Shit, man, that’s…” he falters, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment to gather himself, before reopening them to look at Klaus with tentative eyes, face pale.

“…Do you want to talk about it?”

No. _Fuck_ no. All Klaus wants is to get so shitfaced he can’t remember his name, let alone the night he got murdered. A nose full of cocaine, a handful of whatever pills he can get his hands on and half a bottle of cheap vodka to wash it down would be ideal to loosen the tight little knot inside his chest that got his heart tied up like full-on bondage gear.

But drugs aren’t an option right now.

“Are you serious?” Five says through clenched teeth as he pushes himself from the wall. “How stupid can you be—”

Allison purses her lips, grimacing like she’s in pain.

“Yeah, I am,” Diego snaps, glowering at Five, head held high. “I’m going to give him the chance to talk if he wants to—” even if he doesn’t look like he wants to hear the details, “—and I’m going to _listen_. You don’t? Then, get the hell out of here.”

Five scowls, no doubt not happy about being thrown out of his own room.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he narrows his eyes as if daring Diego to disagree.

Vanya cuts in, glancing between them. “I think it’s a good idea,” she swallows, looking down at her hands. “Only if he wants to, of course.”

Allison gestures to her, gently reaching over to squeeze Vanya’s hand to show her support.

“Should I get Mom?” Luther asks, frowning. “Just in case she’ll be needed? Or…or a glass of water? Crying dehydrates people, right?”

“We don’t need to add more people into the crowd,” Five shakes his head, scoffing. “There’s not much she’ll be able to do.”

Diego throw daggers with his eyes, hissing out a quiet, “Watch it.”

Luther turns to head to the door, walking away.

Something seizes in Klaus’ chest at seeing Luther turn his back on him. Sweat breaks out across his skin, hand clammy around his dog tags.

“The door wouldn’t open.”

Luther’s hand around the handle freezes as he turns around.

Sucking in a shuddering breath, Klaus blinks away the tears in his eyes. “Didn’t budge an inch,” his nails dig through his leather pants into his skin, a prickling pressure helping to ground him. “I kept on hammering on the door, scratching, knocking, until I couldn’t feel my hands.”

Useless details, Dad would call his rambling a waste of time.

The Bastard would’ve moved on from the subject ages ago with nothing more to note down than the fact that the door would remain shut no matter how long Klaus spent trying to open it. A lesson he took a long time to learn in his childish naivety that died a slow death with every additional hour he was locked up into his makeshift grave.

He could still feel the rough texture of stone ripping layers of skin off his fingers, the blood running down his hands, the throb of pain across his knuckles.

“I shouted for him, louder and louder, asking him to let me out, thinking he couldn’t hear me because of them, it’s so dumb, I know he couldn’t hear them, nobody ever does aside from me, but I kept on talking anyway, because I never know when to shut up and I—I thought he would let me out.”

His voice wobbles, brittle and young with childlike yearning to know where he’d gone wrong to deserve such punishment.

“He wouldn’t,” Klaus bites down on the inside of his cheek to stifle a sob. “Of fucking course, he wouldn’t, but I didn’t know why. Four years without process—that should’ve made him quit, right?” Tearing his eyes away from the door, they dart from sibling to sibling, his vision to blurry to see any of them clearly. “There was nothing to gain aside from mentally scaring me for life, which is probably what that sadistic prick wanted after I turned out to be a lost cause.”

“You’re not,” Vanya says, fiercely.

Klaus blinks, tears sliding down his cheeks. “What?”

“You’re not a lost cause.” Her eyes were solid as steel. “It’s not your fault you couldn’t meet Dad’s impossible expectations, okay? What he did to you was horrible…he was a _monster_ and you’re not to blame for being at his mercy.”

She looks so earnest in her resolve, the words coming straight from her heart. They’re probably the ones she’d wished someone told her when Luther got it into his head to lock her away for a power she didn’t know how to handle on her own and somehow that makes it worse.

Here was Vanya, his little sister he’d failed, reassuring him about seeing the best in him.

Even though he’s the worst.

Letting out a huff, he wipes at his eyes with the sleeves of his jacket, the fur soft on his skin despite the harsh way he was scrubbing across his face.

“She’s right,” Five says, sharply—not arrogantly, but stern like someone who knows he’s in the right without rubbing it into your face. How unusual for his brother, who took condescension to a whole new level.

“What happened that night is on him, not you, and the asshole can be glad he’s dead because I would’ve killed him a hundred times over after torturing the shit out of him for murdering you.”

There’s a jab lying on the tip of his tongue just waiting to be spoken. Instead, Klaus giggles, the kind of laugh that usually ends with him getting a recommendation to visit a therapist after an overdose that leaves him high on getting revived while riding an ambulance.

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” he croons, not missing the concerned glances they share, aware he must look like a lunatic with his ruined eyeliner, blotchy face and manic grin. “Are you willing to bet on that?”

Brows furrowing, Five looks at him warily.

It’s Diego, who asks for elaboration, “What do you mean?”

“I’m such an idiot,” Klaus says, waving off the half-hearted protests. “Not as dumb as our darling Number One since I did notice Papa didn’t give a shit about us twenty years earlier than he did, though his wake-up call was harsh enough I’m willing to cut him some slack there, but I still trusted him when I should’ve known better.”

Ben’s face falls as the realization to the implications sinks in.

Suddenly, Klaus doesn’t feel like laughing anymore.

“I believed him, y’know,” It’s a confession, a sin he never dared to share in fear of repercussion. “The first two times he’d throw me in there. I believed him when he told me it would help me be less afraid of the ghosts…that the exposure therapy bullshit could cure me.”

“Oh, Klaus…” Allison whispers, voice raspy as she leans forward to put her hands over his, taking them into her own.

“For all the shit he pulled, I didn’t think of him as a liar—not when it came to our powers.”

“Except when it came to me,” Vanya mumbles bitterly, but she doesn’t look too upset, gesturing for him to continue when he turns to look at her.

Taking a deep, long breath, Klaus squeezes Allison’s hands. “So, I believed him. He didn’t force me to go in there.”

Reginald’s note made it clear he would’ve ended up in the mausoleum regardless of his consent or not, labeling the night as just another attempt to train him in his powers.

Unsurprisingly, the knowledge he never had a choice doesn’t make him feel much better.

“What?” Allison peers into his face, horrified and confused. Her voice sounds ruined, she shouldn’t be speaking at all for the rest of the day.

Five is the one to ask the better question, glaring to hide the flicker of pain flashing across his face.

“Why?”

_Why would you do this to yourself?_

_Why would you willingly put yourself in there?_

_Why did you give in to what he wanted?_

Five always knew how to get the answers he wanted the fastest way possible.

“I was looking for you,” Klaus breathes out, staring at Five, who’s eyes grow comically wide at the admission. “He told me I wasn’t trying hard enough, that my fear kept you away and I believed him.”

“Klaus—”

“He didn’t throw me inside. The one time I go willingly—” The hysterical laugh bubbling up in his chest spills out turning halfway into sobs. Five flinches, face as young as the day he walked out on them, face crumbling into unbidden terror.

“—the only time I try until I literally go blue and it was all for nothing. Because you weren’t dead, it wasn’t my fault you didn’t show up. You couldn’t.”

Five slowly slides down the wall, sinking to the floor.

Arms wrap around him, pulling him forward and Klaus lets Allison embrace him, clinging to her warmth like she’ll pull away too soon. She rubs his back, letting out soothing noises while her other hand softly strokes his hair, tussling his curls as he cries into her shoulder.

“I should’ve known…” Five’s voice sounds strangled to his ears, spiteful mumbling picking up its pace. “...of course, the bastard would take it out on you, if he wasn’t sure I was still running around. He never gave a shit about our limits and by running out I gave him an excuse to hide behind. Like he’d care what happened to me beyond my capability to be a danger to him.”

“Five…” Vanya mumbles, trailing off.

“I’m sorry,” Self-loathing sharpens his soft words enough for Five to cut himself with them. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

Not trusting himself to speak, Klaus shakes his head, staying hidden in Allison’s florally smelling hair. Another hand lays on his shoulder, a reassuring touch more than a caress and he huddles into the warmth his sisters offer, gasping through his sobs and hitches of breath.

Nobody scolds him for his tears, for how long it takes for the tremors running through his bones to lessen and his sobs to quieten into soft sniffles. Allison’s knees must be aching, kneeling like she is while keeping his weight from melting into the floor, but she doesn’t pull back, clinging onto him just as tight, offering the occasional murmur of “I’ve got you.” Into the shell of his ear. Somehow Five’s hand found its way to grip onto his jacket, needing the contact but unwilling to overwhelm him with a touch that might be unwelcome.

When Klaus finally pulls back, not far out of Allison’s reach, Luther wordlessly holds out a glass of water, the door behind him wide open.

“You back with us, buddy?” Diego asks, trying to catch his gaze while bending down into a crouch while Allison shuffles over to make a little room, chair forgone.

Drinking the water, eyes lowered to the floor, he nods, cradling the glass to his chest.

After another few minutes of silence where he sips on the water until it’s empty, he sets the glass aside on the floor, taking in a deep breath before looking up.

“Allison,” his voice is strung out, wrecked from crying. “I need a favor.”

She perks up, looking at him with swollen red eyes, lips tugging downwards as soon as she gets a clear look of his face. Not giving her a chance to shut him down before he even asked, he reaches out, fingers curling around his dog tags while reaching out with the other to take her on into his.

“Please,” he says, breathless, watching her gaze crumble as her eyes flicker from his hand to his face. She doesn’t know of Dave or Vietnam, doesn’t get the context in a way that would justify his request in her eyes, but his loss must be clear for her to see, because her face softens. “I know it’s a lot to ask for, Ally, trust me, I know, but you wouldn’t do it without my permission. It’s different this time.”

She bites her lip.

Luther frowns, confused. “What are you—”

Vanya shushes him, her pained frown washing out what little color she had left in her face.

“There’s a reason I forgot, I think,” Klaus continues, squeezing her hand. “And for once it’s not because of drugs—” She pulls a face at his poor joke, slapping him on the knuckles. “—and there’s a reason I’m asking you now.”

It’s the coward’s way out to escape responsibility and guilt.

If he hadn’t been so willing to forget, to burry these memories, Dave and Ben wouldn’t be dead.

He couldn’t live with himself for daring to forget a part of him that could’ve saved them.

“How many times did I ask you to help me out with your powers?”

Allison cringes, holding up three fingers. Once asking her to rumor him to sleep, then to give him control over his powers and afterwards, in the midst of recovering from his first overdose, quietly begging her to rumor his powers away.

Only the first rumor had ever been successful.

“Rumor them away.” Breaths catch around the room, but he’s not finished. “Burn the book. Don’t tell me I’m annoying enough to get onto God’s shit list and get myself removed from the guest list of the afterlife, okay?”

Allison still looks conflicted and Klaus’ heart lurches.

“So, that’s it?” He can’t help the bitterness seeping into his voice, seeing her grimace. “I don’t get a say until _you_ decide I do and when I tell you I don’t want to know it’s my own fault for looking for answers you wouldn’t give me?”

Luther protests, brows furrowed. “Hey, that’s not—"

“Not what?” Klaus spits out, rising to his feet. “Not fair? You know what else isn’t fair? Dying because dear old Dad set you up for failure in a coffin before you were old enough to get an adult sized one. How about the fact the asshole failed to mention my inability to stay dead last time we had a chat after I literally bashed my skull open in a ratty club I didn’t even want to go to? Does any of that sound fair to you, Luther? No? Guess what, nothing’s fair in life and it isn’t in death either.”

By the time he’s finished with his little rant, he’s a hand’s length away from Luther, cheeks flushed in anger, glaring up at his brother, who’s starting at him like he’s switched into another language half-way through.

 _“Klaus.”_ Ben says from his perch on the bed.

Rounding on the ghost, Klaus snaps, “What?”

_“You might’ve wanted to soften the blow a little.”_

Ben gestures around the room, hood drawn close as he fiddles with the strings.

Twisting around to glance at his siblings, Klaus finds himself the target of five disbelieving stares that slowly descend into varying degrees of horror and anger. 

“You told us you conjured him,” Five says, the first one to find his voice, whip fast and razor sharp as he leaps to his feet. “Not that you died and met him in the… _in the afterlife_.”

Deflating at the wild eyes, Klaus begins to blunder, settling on a shrug. “So, what? Not like you believed me back then.”

Five’s face is turning an alarming shade of red.

“Look, I get it, okay? Me coming home from a rave saying I met Dad in the afterlife? Unbelievable, crazy, the talk of a junkie on a bad trip.” Klaus pauses, taking in the pained grimaces around him, Ben rubbing a hand across his forehead and amends defensively, “It’s not like I wanted to die, alright? One thing lead to another, and it’s not like it stuck. I’m fine.”

“You _died_.” Diego retorts heatedly, “It’s not a fucking joke, Klaus, so don’t make one out of it.”

“Yeah, well, how else was I supposed to talk to Daddy?” Klaus huffs out, throwing up his hands. “You think the stubborn prick would have come because I called? Christ, no. Turns out he only takes house calls.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Five glares, vein pulsing along his neck.

“Not like you tell me shit either!”

“I buried you in the apocalypse, dumbass,” Five shouts, jumping across the room to grab a fistful of his shirt to shake him by the collar. “Because I didn’t know you could wake up again! I killed you—” Voice cracking painfully, Five tugs at his shirt like he wants to rip it off. “—I buried you alive for however long it took you to crawl back out, if you ever did.”

Stammering, Klaus says, “Wait, hang on, you don’t know if I woke up—"

Lips pulled back to bare his teeth, Five snarls, shoving him away. “I _killed_ you. I have to live with that on my conscience. Do you know how desperate I was to find one of you alive back then? How long I was searching for Vanya and Ben before I found her goddamn book in the rubble of a library? I was all alone, because I couldn’t wait to suffocate you—"

“Technically, that didn’t happen!”

“I don’t give a fuck about technicalities!” Five bites out, loud enough to cause them to flinch. “You don’t get it, of course, you don’t. Your feeble mind can’t grasp the concept of grief with your powers being what they are.”

“Says the time-traveler,” Klaus says, icily.

Luther steps in between them when Five takes an aggressive step forward, hands held out placating.

“You two need to cool down,” he says, firmly. “Going for each other’s throats right now isn’t helping anyone.”

Diego nods, eyeing them, ready to interfere. “He’s right for once.”

Throwing his brother an exasperated glance, Luther lets out a sigh, staying silent.

Glaring at each other, Klaus and Five don’t break eye-contact.

Not until Allison speaks up, voice hoarse.

“I’ll do it.”

Blinking all eyes turn towards her. She looks determined, partly frustrated as she stalks towards Five’s desk to get a pen and paper, furiously writing down her thoughts to soothe her voice.

 _I’ll do it,_ it reads in her cursive handwriting. _But we’re doing this right or not at all._

She flips a page.

_Five will help me get the exact wording right._

“Allison,” Luther tries to interject, but she shakes her head.

 _We know now, so did he,_ she writes, pursing her lips. _He doesn’t want to remember and honestly, I don’t blame him._ She flips to another page, pen moving quickly before she shows what she’s written down. _It’s his choice and I want to help him._

Luther falters at that. “Are you sure? Both of you?”

Allison and Klaus share a glance and nod.

“What about you?”

Five grits his teeth and jams his hands into his pockets. “Not like I can refuse, since it’s my fault for leaving the book lying around within easy reach.”

“To be fair I played Ben into becoming my accomplice,” Klaus says, “I wouldn’t have tried my luck in snooping around, if I wasn’t sure you weren’t waiting in your closet ready to jump out and murder me.”

Ben’s answering hiss, matches Five’s furious glower.

“Right,” Klaus rubs at the back of his neck. “No jokes about getting murdered anymore when it actually happened. Sorry. My bad.”

Vanya steps forward, brushing off invisible dust from her hands and pants. “Why don’t we head downstairs? You wanted to burn the book, right? Allison and Five can discuss the…rumor and join us later after they figured it out.”

Throwing an arm around her shoulders, Klaus pulls her close to his side.

“Fantastic idea, Vanny,” he praises, melting into the arm she puts around his waist. “I’m generous enough to let Five get dibs on sacrificing the torture manual to the God that hates me.”

Diego looks sullen as he follows them to the door while Five’s face loses some of its previous hostility.

“Why does he get to burn it?”

“Because as the expert arsonist in this family and second oldest of our bunch, my vote overrules any of yours in this case.”

“There’s no way you’re above me in the age hierarchy.”

“Or me,” Luther adds under his breath, gently pulling the door shut behind him. Klaus doesn’t comment on the fact Ben stayed behind to eavesdrop.

“Keep telling that yourselves,” Klaus sing-songs, relishing in the disgruntled frowns. “Because it won’t change the facts. You can go ask our resident senior citizen if you don’t believe me. He can vouch for me.”

Vanya snorts, giving him a smile. “Like Five wouldn’t agree with you just to mess with them as long as he stays the oldest.”

“And that’s why you’re the fourth oldest,” Klaus drops a kiss into her crown of hair. She brightens at his words, gaining her healthy flush back little by little as Luther and Diego splutter out denials, which they both pretend to ignore.

They settle around the living room by the chimney and it’s not long until Five and Allison appear in a flash of blue light.

Klaus straightens up from his slouch seeing Ben fall through the ceiling to land on his feet.

“So?” he asks, anticipation making him giddy. “Ready to set my memories on fire until they’re ash we can dump with the rest of him in the courtyard?”

Five rolls his eyes, book held tight under his arm as he nudges Allison forward. “Go ahead and do your thing. He’ll thank you now since he can’t do it later.”

“You’re the absolute best, Ally,” Klaus complies easily, beaming at her. “You moved up the favorite sibling scale for this. Remind me to knit you a sweater, oh! And I’ll do your nails whenever, just swing by and I’ll do it. I could kiss you for this, but I have a feeling Luther will throw me out of the window.”

Luther groans, cheeks flushing as he barks out a scandalized, “Klaus!”

“What?”

Diego shakes his head next to him on the couch, knocking their shoulders together gently. “Don’t be gross, man, even if it’s true.” He smirks when Luther buries his face into his hands, elbow braced on his knees.

Clapping her hands to get their attention, Allison sinks down on the free seat on the couch.

“Seriously,” Klaus says, softly, turning towards her. “Thank you.”

Allison leans in, giving him a shaky smile and the moment, her breath brushes the shell of his ear, his mind shuts down.

* * *

Klaus jostles back into focus to see Five throw a book into their chimney with glee, blinking rapidly at the disorientation he feels. Scanning the room for Ben, he’s surprised to see their resident bookworm look satisfied rather than horrified at the treatment to one of his well-loved babies.

He’s about to ask about the odd reaction, swallowing the words back down when Five glances over his shoulder with a manic grin.

“Worst book I’ve ever had the misfortune to read,” his brother says in lieu of an explanation.

Ben nods in the corner of his eyes.

“Why?” Klaus asks, teasingly, wiggling his eyebrows. “Was it about puberty?”

Five pulls a face, but doesn’t tell him off. “Like you haven’t set the old man’s belonging on fire for shit and giggles.”

“Touché.”

“It’s getting late,” Vanya interrupts, looking tired. When he turns to look at her, she musters up a smile. Her eyes are red like she cried recently, nose pink, a light blush dusting her pale cheeks. He makes a mental note to ask Allison about that later. “How does Griddy’s sound?”

Five nods absent-mindedly. “The coffee’s decent.” He turns away, saying “I’ll get the keys,” and disappears. Vanya moves to follow, no doubt hurrying to negotiate the driver’s rights lest they get pulled over again for letting Five behind the wheel.

Luther rises to his feet, heading towards the door without waiting for Allison, much to his shock.

“I’m not paying,” Klaus says and watches the book burn in the fire, pages going up in smoke. He wonders what could possible set Five off to commit arson in need to quell his rage and decides it’s not worth pondering about in fear of mentally scaring himself.

“C’mon, it’s time for dinner.”

He gets tugged up from his seat—wondering if he dosed off in the middle of another family meeting without knowing, he certainly felt exhausted enough for having woken up from a nap. Diego’s arm around his shoulder steers him away from the sight, luring him out with the promise of donuts, toasty and buttery warm.

Ben catches his eye, somber expression melting into a strained smile before he too, follows them out the door, lingering shy of being left behind. He opens his mouth to ask, but Allison pulls him along, linked as their arms were, telling him about different choices of toppings she tried down to every flavor she got to taste, in sign language they started to learn a while ago.

Putting the strange behavior out of mind, trying to clear the fog, he decides to ask Ben later when his stomach isn’t trying to eat itself.

There’s no way he’d turn down free food.

Especially, since the last time he’d eaten donuts they were out of a dumpster.

**Author's Note:**

> I've tried to built it up into a mystery, though I'm not sure I succeeded. Did it work out? Who knows, certainly not me. It's my personal headcanon that God in the show is in the body of a preteen girl because Klaus was that age the first time they met. 
> 
> Moving on, feedback is always appreciated!


End file.
